2003, Through the Looking Glass: Tomorrow's Headlines Today

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For the beginning of the new year, Tomorrow's Headlines Today, an advance selection of the year's top
stories:

Democratic Field Quits

Kerry: 'Who Are We Kidding?'

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 -- In a move that stunned veteran political observers, the entire field of
undeclared Democratic presidential hopefuls today followed former party front-runner Al Gore in
declaring themselves out of the running for the 2004 race.

At a group press conference here, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, previously considered the
post-Gore front-runner, said that he and others contemplating a run had come separately to the same
conclusion: "We're delusional." Of his own chances, Kerry said, "I've got just two things to say to myself:
'Michael Dukakis, lieutenant governor,' and 'Swiss finishing school.' "

Following Kerry, others offered similar and unusually personal explanations for their decisions to quit
their efforts. "Take a look at me," said North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, "I'm 15 years old, right?
Maybe 16, max. Also, I'm a personal injury lawyer." Said Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, "If every man,
woman and child in Vermont, and every one of their friends and relatives, and every person on the planet
who does, or wishes to do business in Vermont, gives me every penny they have, or ever hope to have,
I'll have enough cash on hand to buy lunch." Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle simply said,
"Please, I mean, really."

Carter Returns Nobel Peace Prize

'Too, Too Ridiculous,' Ex-Prez Says

PLAINS, Ga., March 17 -- In a move that stunned veteran narcissistic personality disorder observers, a smiling Jimmy Carter
today announced that he had decided to return the coveted Peace Prize awarded to him last year by the Nobel Committee.

"I may be the most vainglorious, self-regarding, preachifying old coot since Henry Ward Beecher, but even I know when a
joke has gone too far," said Carter. "Let's consider my contributions to world peace. In 1991, as the United States was on the
very verge of war, I secretly lobbied the presidents of the United Nations Security Council nations, and also the heads of the
Arab nations, to try to persuade them to scuttle my own country's efforts to build a coalition and defeat Iraq. Imagine if I had
succeeded -- why, we now know Iraq was within months of building its first nuclear weapon when the war began!

"Then, I butted into Clinton's disaster in Somalia, to put together the surrender to that charmer Mohamed Farah Aideed after
his boys killed 18 of our soldiers and dragged their beaten bodies through the streets. And we now know that the spectacle of
the Great Satan knuckling under to a guy whose entire army consisted of 10 second-hand Jeeps directly encouraged Osama
bin Laden to believe that America was ripe for capitulation on a much greater scale -- if you killed enough Americans.

"And the clincher -- Korea. Yep, I'm the boy who freelanced the 1994 agreement with the head-case of that horror show to
stop his nuclear bomb program, in exchange for a whole bunch of aid from us. When reporters asked me then if it was really
reasonable to expect Kim Il Sung to keep his word, given that he never had before, I said: 'This is something that's not for me
to judge.' Well, of course, neither that nut-job nor his nut-job son honored the deal for one second. So now, eight years later,
another American president has inherited another fine mess I got us in.

"Please, take it back, and stop me before I negotiate again."

Talking Heads to 'Shut Up, Already'

NEW YORK, April 12 -- A coalition of more than 2,000 pundits, major entertainment figures, writers of previously
best-selling novels, former elected, military and government officials, professors of the humanities and ordained ministers
announced a "solemn pledge" to "from this moment forth stop lecturing every American president and the world about stuff we
don't know a damn thing about, as if somebody had died and made us G-d."

The one-time television star Ed Asner, chairman of the newly minted National Coalition to Restore Some Measure of Sanity or
At Least Brevity to the National Dialogue (NCRSMSALBND), said a grass-roots movement had been growing among the
talking head community for years. "Increasingly, we were aware that, on the one hand, we were driving our fellow Americans
nuts with our incessant ignorant nattering; and, on the other, we were simply full of it," Asner explained.

And these late headlines just in:

Clinton, 'First Black President,'

Admits He Is White
'More White Than Most Other White People,
Really; You Should See Me Naked,
If You Haven't Already'